


Self(ish)

by IuvenesCor



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Portal 2 Spoilers, a very grimdark style of hurt/comfort fic i guess?, body horror for robots, introspective on the core transfer scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:33:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22391089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IuvenesCor/pseuds/IuvenesCor
Summary: The one time, thought Wheatley— the one time that humans had to be entirely unselfish about something, it had to be about pain.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	Self(ish)

The one time, thought Wheatley— the one time that humans had to be entirely unselfish about something, it had to be about pain. 

If he’d have thought to give one of his defining traits to a group of life forms, he would offer something universally accepted as good: wits, or a sense of humor, or at the very least a good optic display. He was reasonable like that. He didn’t just toss around the idea of others’ feelings like a piece of garbage. He wasn’t rude, like a human.

Humans, who thought it brilliant to wire the concept of pain into a core’s processors. Humans, who really, honestly didn’t care to do their own work, or to ask others nicely to do that work for them, or to be thankful after said others had slaved over that work for hours while all the lazy humans got to sit in their cushiony office chairs and sit at their office desks and drink their office coffee. (He’d always wanted an office. He never got one.) Humans, who always whined whenever they caught themselves on fire or sprained one of their moving bits— not because they couldn’t be repaired but because they experienced discomfort. So why would those bloody self-loving meatbags want to impose unnecessary pains on others? Wheatley supposed he shouldn’t have expected much better from a culture that fostered televised boxing and prat falls. Sadists, all of them. If they couldn’t have it good, no one could.

Still, it didn’t make much sense, when he took the time to think about it later. Core transferring was a 100-percent legal operation, wasn’t it? They had come up with it, after all, those human scientists. There was a proper dock and a stalemate resolution button and everything! Protocol from floor to ceiling, just to make sure it was done right. All in all, pain receptors had some logic to them; but why, in the name of all that was good, would _this_ hurt? A simple message coded into his memory along the lines of _“Hello, this is a rubbish idea because you might get yourself killed, so you’d better not do that thing you planned on doing”_ would have been sufficient. Sleep mode, even— they might have implemented sleep mode protocol and everything would just stop. 

But his fears were founded, and SHE was not a liar (this time).

It really, _really_ hurt. 

He figured it was worse than blue-screening.

From the start, being plugged in was strange enough. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation, of course: he had been plugged in to his rail for as long as he cared to remember (or as long as he could remember, before his memory either started to corrupt or display [REDACTED].) But for that short time since he’d been off of his rail— glorious day, that was— he had become almost accustomed to being just good old Wheatley, not an add-on or extension of Something Bigger. After tasting freedom, being connected to a mainframe was...defiling. But he could get over that, if it meant helping the Lady find her own freedom.

There was a spark, however, in his system the minute it began. Not a literal spark, though there may have been some of that too; no, it was a sudden jolt to his firewall, a battering ram to his mechanical senses as soon as the stalemate button was hit. Something was reaching around. Something was seeping through his motherboard, fingering about to grab hold of...what? 

_Of everything._

Disoriented, he struggled to pull his thoughts into their proper place, setting himself right again; but it hurt to resist against the vise grip of the transfer machine. His paranoia surged. This feeling couldn’t be normal. Did they miss a step, did they do something wrong? Did the Lady not press the button in the right way? Did he miscalculate? What if— 

What _if_ —

—oh, _what if_ it was going to kill him? Or what if SHE could just force him out— make him suffer? No, no, he didn’t want to do this anymore. Too many risks. He could die. It wasn’t worth it. He just wanted to live. He wasn’t meant to be a hero— to help save anyone. He was never even meant to save himself. He was only meant to do his job. And for once, he was okay with that— really, he was. He’d like to go back to the way it used to be. Boring. Painless. _Not this._

But backing out, he realized, was looking more and more out of the question. Whatever was reaching inside of him had finally locked onto every byte that he could number, with what he might have compared to a hand full of claws— and jerked back. Searing, sharp, all together unexpected: that was the pain. His verbal modulator nearly overloaded as programmed instinct made him scream. 

He still searched frantically for ways to escape, but the program carried on without him. There wasn’t even time for another shout before, in the malicious dark, arms closed in on both his sides and began to dismantle his casing. He’d had his casing taken apart in the past, for minor repairs, but not like this: this was cold and rapid and it _hurt._

Following the almost full stripping of his outer shell, several of his wires were disconnected. Some were severed entirely. Thankfully, the verbal mod was among the first undone, though he began to miss the idea of cathartic howling. But the pain link still hadn’t been taken apart, not yet. Nor had the audio processors: he could hear the whine of the barbaric machinery that was presently molesting him. (He could hear HER wailing in agony.) And the optic display— well, what did it matter? He couldn’t see, anyway.

Fear. Right and proper terror. He always thought he’d felt it at least once before all this. But he never had.

His concentration began to break, all his free thoughts steeped in horror while new lines of code wormed their way into his consciousness. He could feel a rush of emptiness, of reaching out, as the machine began to plug him port by port into something so much bigger than what he’d ever felt before. (He was terrified of it immediately.) He felt his thoughts, his very being, slipping into that vast Unknown, being vacuumed up like dust specks. 

The pain stopped abruptly. But something... something more daunting consumed him.

_Everything._

Being plugged in to his rail had been like arriving at a mansion with a hundred locked doors and only a handful of keys. But this— oh, this was different. He was in the mansion and every door had been torn off its hinges. As the final wires were inserted to their proper resting places, he was flooded with all of the world he’d ever known and so, so much more. 

He…

He’d done it. 

Oh, he’d _actually_ done it! He’d taken over from HER! The facility was his to control!

He could see the light of the chamber now, and he did his best to suppress a bark of laughter. It worked! It bloody worked! With very little effort at all, he spun himself around, testing the chassis. And it moved like a dream! How huge was he, now? It was amazing. Absolutely fantastic! Ooh, and look at the walls, moving at his whim! Everything was so new and perfect and he’d done it and they _won_ and it didn’t hurt anymore and nothing could possibly go wrong! Oh, if he had a mouth, he might have smiled. He knew he was yammering on about nonsense, but he just couldn’t help himself. After all, the Lady could let him have his fun, just for a moment, couldn’t she? Of course she could. She would. He just had to have a moment for himself. 

No. Not... for himself.

For HIMSELF. 

Master of the facility, god of all that science— it felt quite fulfilling, actually, being the boss. He’d always wanted to be the boss, and now he— no, _HE_ — was. And who says HE couldn’t, anyway? HE’d always had the potential. Just tiny little Wheatley, ridiculous Wheatley, that’s all the other staff ever thought of HIM. But HE was more than that, now wasn’t HE? HE was a bloody genius, really.

HE had the power to make everything perfect now. No one could put tiny little Wheatley down, because tiny little Wheatley didn’t exist anymore. It was big massive WHEATLEY now. HE was in control. No more pain. No more arguing. No more needing anyone else. Aperture was HIS oyster. They should be happy for HIM, not all selfish. Not calling him stupid. Moron. Idiot. 

No.

HE wouldn’t let them. If anyone had the right to be selfish, to judge intelligence, it was HE. HE had the right, after all these years, to be the hero in the end. To save HIMSELF first. Because HE had done it. HE had given HIMSELF to it.

No one could get in the way of that— especially not the two people who caused HIM the most pain.

Not anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there-- thanks for reading! I've been sitting on an older version of this fic since... *checks*… at least 2014? I have literally no idea why I never posted it. But I uncovered it this last week and it gave me a feel. Portal 2 is my favorite video game of all time and one of the driving forces behind my obsession with gaming; but above all that... this world is ART, man. So dark and mechanical and humorous all the same. I love it.


End file.
